This was my first proper open mic night and it was one of the greatest moments of my life this far.

I’d only ever played a couple of my songs live once at a friend’s charity thing, so I was terrified. But I just remembered what Lemony Snicket says: “Do the scary thing first and get scared later.”

Mike came with me for support and I was glad he was there. We got there an hour early and had to sit around and wait. I hate waiting, but Mike and I had such a laugh that it made me feel better about going on stage and trying to be funny.

They’d put me on second, so we went in and listened to the first band. They were pretty good, but quite a generic rock band with the usual sort of songs about love and heartbreak. Because their music was so heavy and I was going up with a ukulele, I thought I’d make a Monty Python reference and open with “And now for something completely different.”

When my time came, the guy introduced me and said “And now for something completely different.”

Damnit! He’d stolen my line.

Since I didn’t have an opener, I just went straight into the song. To be honest, I didn’t say very much throughout my set and I completely forgot to thank the audience. Nerves I guess.

The first song is always the most important, because if I get a laugh during the first song it makes me feel confident in my material, so I went with Wake The Pilot, which was a reliable song for getting laughs. True to form, it got a laugh and it was such a great feeling.

After the set, loads of people came up to me and said how much they’d enjoyed my songs and how funny they were. As someone who’d been writing songs for about 5 years and hardly ever played them to anyone, this was so reassuring and I was so happy. One girl – who would later perform – loved That’s Not Me in particular and even tweeted me later referencing the song.